Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

S aturday dawned bright and hot, and the mantle of jet lag was lighter for Kira as she left the hotel to grab breakfast from a pastry vendor on a nearby side street. She messaged Rand, giving him her destination.

He'd accepted the boundaries she'd placed on his protective duties. First and foremost, she was here to find out about her father. Rand's presence by her side could ruin that for her. They would play by the rules they'd agreed to—she was careful in her walking, turning often, ostensibly to marvel at the architecture, but really to see if she'd picked up a tail. She used reflective shop windows to her advantage as well as making sudden decisions to enter shops or take an about-face to examine a menu she'd passed or a sign she'd missed.

It took her twenty minutes to go just a few blocks, but she was certain she wasn't being followed. The extra time and attention to her surroundings wasn't a hardship. Valletta was utterly gorgeous, and she enjoyed the leisurely exploration. Plus, she'd selected several restaurants she wanted to dine at this week.

The pastizz—a local pastry filled with ricotta cheese—was crispy perfection that cost less than fifty cents American, given that euros to dollars currently were in her favor. She ate and sipped her coffee as she made her way down the street full of tourists out enjoying the day before it got too hot.

She approached the archaeology museum, which would open in ten minutes. She wanted to talk up the employees and find out if anyone knew her father. In Malta, art and archaeology were deeply intertwined, from The Sleeping Lady to other Neolithic works that were both art and artifacts.

The Sleeping Lady was the kind of artifact that her previous employers would have loved to license for their artifact replica retail chain. But Malta was too smart to let the Historie fox into the Neolithic hen house. Months ago, she'd known that if she never did anything else in her work as an art historian, having helped take down the retail chain was enough.

In a lot of ways, it even made her personal nightmare worth it.

But now she had a new quest. She would continue her father's work tracking down art stolen by Nazis. Seeing those works repatriated would be so very satisfying.

R and wasn't following Kira, but he stayed in her orbit. The interior of the walled city was relatively small, making it easy for him to be within a few blocks of her at any given moment. She didn't know he was tracking her phone, which triggered more than a little guilt.

Freya had suggested that there was another reason Kira didn't want him close: She knew more about her father than she let on, and his activities in Malta hadn't been legal.

He reminded himself that Freya was suspicious of everyone, always. Sometimes with good reason. But it bothered him that the former covert operator had turned her distrust on Kira.

She claimed it was warranted, given that Kira had kept this trip secret. He wondered if she was looking at the shooting on the base in a different light now, but didn't broach the subject.

He figured Kira was hiding something, but he trusted her. Her father was a different story. He could be a traitor to his country or a thief and a con for all he knew, but that wouldn't change how he felt about Kira.

Besides, he had his own reason for disliking the dead man. He and Kira could have formed a friendship over the last six months. Or something more. At the very least, he could have been there to support her when her father was taken ill. Held her hand at the funeral as she grieved.

But her father had denied her that support. What was it about Rand that had worried him?

Kira entered the archaeology museum, and Rand grabbed a seat at a restaurant that was a few blocks away. She'd likely be inside awhile. He might as well be comfortable while he waited.

He ordered breakfast and watched the ever-shifting groups of tourists and locals as they shopped and dined on the main thoroughfare.

An hour and a half passed, and finally, his phone told him Kira had left the museum. She would be meeting with her cousin at his hotel shortly.

He wondered if Andre Stoltz could be trusted. He'd sent Freya photos of Cousin Andre along with the other pictures he'd taken with the ring camera last night. Kira had gotten most of the information about her father from the man who might be family, but who was still a total stranger.

Meeting Andre Stoltz meant a lot to Kira. Even though he wasn't a blood relative, he was her only living family member. She'd sounded so wistful and alone last night when she spoke of what this trip was really about. A chance to know her deceased parents a little better. To learn more about herself.

To not be so alone in the world.

Rand's parents were gone, and, in the end, they hadn't been close, but his sister and her family were the first people he wanted to see when he returned from a deployment. His nonmilitary family. Maggie was happily married with one child and plans to have more if biology allowed. He counted his brother-in-law as his closest male friend outside his military family. They lived only 200 miles apart, and he visited regularly.

Then there was that military family, which included SEALs and other special forces operators, like Pax and Cal, whom he'd worked with over the years. The longer he was on the teams, the more blood brothers he collected, Chris Flyte being the latest addition.

Rand was far from alone. He had blood relatives and found family. Kira, as far as he knew, had neither.

He watched the red Kira dot on his cell phone map as she entered a boutique hotel in the heart of Valletta. The cousin's hotel. Rand stayed put, even though he was several blocks away at this point. If she and Andre Stoltz left the hotel to walk through the city streets, it wouldn't be good for Andre to spot him tailing Kira.

Andre had to believe the cover story along with everyone else. Rand wished Kira had gone for a fiction that included a whirlwind romance in Malta that would put Rand at her side every moment, but understood why that wouldn't work now. Or rather, yet .

Because at some point, that would be exactly the story they gave, and Kira would have to accept that.

For now, she'd look for opportunities to bring him in as an art enthusiast and potential buyer. Unfortunately, Andre, who lived in Berlin, had nothing to sell in Malta.

He left the restaurant and made his way to the archaeology museum. Inside, he wandered through the exhibits, pausing for a long time to take in The Sleeping Lady , which was one of the few named artifacts he'd read about on his flight. The tiny carved figure had exquisite detail, right down to textures that showed she wore clothing on her lower extremities.

That she'd been carved in the Neolithic period was incredible. He'd done a fair amount of research on the artifact trade—legal and illegal—since last December. His interest had been piqued, but also, he supposed he hoped to impress Kira at some point. Forget that it wasn't her specialty.

She liked art and museums. He liked Kira. He did his homework.

He'd known that at some point, their paths would cross again. It was unfortunate it had happened when he was taking Staci home from a party, but how could he have known she'd show up so late to Morgan and Pax's baby shower?

But even that was just a lousy excuse. He and Staci had ended their friends-with-benefits relationship over eighteen months ago, and falling back into it because they were both at the shower and the woman he really wanted wasn't had been a terrible idea. As it was, he saw Kira duck down in her car and he'd gone cold, no longer interested in a no-commitment screw with his former lover.

He'd dropped Staci at her apartment and apologized for changing his mind. She'd given him a sad smile and agreed it was probably a bad idea from the start. They'd enjoyed their arrangement for a while, but they'd both known the spark for something more had never been there.

He'd returned to Morgan's, hoping to see Kira, but she wasn't there. As far as he could tell, she'd never joined the party at all.

She left because she'd spotted him with Staci. Now, knowing how lonely she was, he felt like an even bigger heel. She'd taken a night for herself, a break from caretaking for her father and an opportunity to deepen her friendship with Morgan, but she'd skipped it because of him and his stupid desire to scratch an itch that could wait.

He had no clue how to tell Kira how sorry he was without causing her more pain.

He was looking at an underwater archaeology exhibit when his phone pinged with a text from Freya.

Freya

Call me. Now. Urgent.

Rand looked around the museum. There was no one else in the room, but that could change at any moment. Freya wasn't one to use the word "urgent" lightly, so he hit the Call button next to her name.

She didn't waste a second. "The photo you sent, you're sure that was Cousin Andre?"

"Yes. Kira introduced us."

"We've got a problem, then, because I don't know who that man is, but he definitely isn't Kira's step-cousin. As far as I can tell, no one has seen or spoken to Stoltz since a week before Kira's dad had his first stroke."